Season’s dominator Lukas Prüger defeated 4:6,6:3,3:6 in the final on Tuesday evening….
Season’s dominator Lukas Prüger defeated 4-6,6-3,3-6 in the final of the 22nd season on Tuesday evening. November Masters Series 1000 Tournament a historic victory and thus missed an unprecedented record. The 19-year-old from Schwechater TC would have been the first player in HTT history to celebrate seven tournament victories in a row. However, a young man who has worked his way up continuously over the last few weeks and months, and who was only overshadowed by Vukicevic, Prüger & Co. due to a lack of “final successes”, has become a spoilsport and party-crasher. With his final triumph over Lukas Prüger at the last HTT Masters 1000 tournament of the year, Kevin Köck from WAT Landstrasse has not only given hope to the competition in the fight against the almost half year-long over-flyer, but has also played himself into the top flight of HTT superstars with his first title win on HTT 1000 level. A report by C. L.
Last Tuesday, Kevin Köck gave a sigh of relief to the HTT scene, which suffered from the impressive winning streak and dominance of Lukas Prüger, and added the first defeat to the six-time tournament winner in 2017 after 31 consecutive victories. The young star of WAT Landstrasse, seeded at number 5, beat the budding HTT number 1 in the high-class final of the November Masters Series 1000 tournament in 1:59 hours of playtime with 6:4,3:6,6:3, celebrated his second HTT career victory in all and also took an impressive revenge with his first victory over Prüger in the fourth direct season duel. At the same time Köck also improved his rather moderate final record this year with his surprising success over the season’s dominator, and celebrated his first full success after three final defeats en suite. A 1000-point win brought him into the top ten of the highly jazzed HTT Entry List for the first time in his career and put him in an excellent position to qualify for the HTT Tour finals in 2017 at UTC La Ville.
Right away: What the two 19-year-olds showed on Tuesday evening at the UTC La Ville’s 8th court was tennis at its finest, best evening entertainment and a final giant duel, which can be counted as the best match of this season and one of the top 3 games in HTT history. Köck and Prüger celebrated two hours of rarely seen high speed tennis, thundered over each other’s ears for exactly 119 minutes, 97 winners, and were both big winners with their performance at the end of the Masters Series 1000 year. The prelude to this 1,190 HTT final was still expected and on schedule, as Prüger started with an early break and a 2-0 lead. But then Köck played in the total “flow”, played tennis as if in a trance, and made a 5:2 lead with five games won in series from a 0:2 deficit. Playing a bit exuberantly and overpowering his baseline strokes, Köck had to let his opponent approach 4:5 in the meantime, but after 38 minutes the 19-year-old had finally got the first set with 6:4. It was Prüger’s first set loss since the semi-final at the HTT French Open in June this year, when Lukas lost the first set 6-0 to Matthias Wolf without a single note.
In the second round, Prüger quickly set the course in his direction, when he played an early break to a 3-0 lead, and he did not lose it either. Though it was again very close in this second heat. At 4:2 and 40:15, Prüger had two options to set to 5:2 before Köck made the re-break to 3:4 with four points in a row. The set was “on serve” again, but then Köck played a catastrophically played serve game, which he had to give off with two double errors to zero. Prüger served out and hoisted the top match into an all-decisive third heat. As in the previous two sets, Prüger had the better start there. The 19-year-old benefited from his opponent’s three double errors in the opening game and, for his part, did not pose any problems on his own serve to 2-0. Whoever relied on a 3-1 win over Prüger and the dismantling of his opponent, who had started as an outsider, was mercilessly disproved in his assessment. Köck pulled himself at his own hair out of this more than tricky situation, and finally managed to turn the corner with a hard-fought game win at 3:3. It was a break after 40:15 lead and somehow slowed down the flow of the game and the ease of the last few months in the appearance of the 6-time season’s winner. High class and exciting then also the seventh game in round 3, which will be played by Köck at the end after the match and break points on both sides, and finally paved the way for the 19 year old to the big triumph.
After 1:59 hours of playing time – Köck had forced Prüger to make a final mistake – it was done! The WAT Landstrasse Star dropped backwards before his opponent crossed over to the other side of the square and the two final heroes were in each other’s arms. Köck and Prüger understand each other perfectly since the HTT-Erste Bank Open 500 Finale in the Wiener Stadthalle, and so this match was marked by fairness and mutual respect, regardless of the final result. What a great athlete Lukas Prüger is showed in the defeat, which was not easy for the 19-year-old. Ok: Prüger had recently celebrated 31 victories in a row and thus erased an ancient record from the previous millennium. The 19-year-old will become HTT’s new number 1 on Tuesday of next week, and 6 titles in 2017 are not bad results either. But the HTT French Open champion would have liked to take home the historic and record-breaking seventh consecutive victory in the tournament,”The Kevin has won without a doubt deserved. I can’t really blame myself, we played a megacool match. As soon as I was too short today, Kevin put me under pressure. I didn’t even serve badly today, but even if I served a board, the return came back even faster. I would say that the Kevin is a worthy Masters competitor, which for me is far more than just a secret favourite,”says Prüger, who had to face a defeat for the first time since the March Masters Series 1000 round of 16 at the beginning of April this year.
But the man of the evening and the weekend was Kevin Köck. The 19-year-old celebrated a very special second tournament victory in his career. Than 51. Players of history, WAT Landstrasse Young Star was able to secure a title at Masters Series 1000 level, and celebrate a title that hung by a thread several times in the course of the tournament. In round 1, Köck had fought off six match balls against Philipp Dörre, and in the quarter-finals against HTT-US Open winner Patrick Wiesmühler in the decisive third set, he also caught up a 2:5 “I am overjoyed to have won this tournament. And even more so in such a grand finale. With this title I have now proved to myself that I can win such high-calibre tournaments. And showed the others that Luke is not invincible after all. I am happy to be the first player to finish Lukas Prüger’s winning streak. For me, this is the crowning glory of my achievements in the last few weeks,”says the 19-year-old new rank eight of HTT.